Dungeon from the Void - Book 4 - Chapter 18 - Problems with Infusion (Patreon)

                                                                                 Fenrir

A loud cracking sound begins to come from the arc before it shatters and falls into pieces.

"Damn it!" I exclaim as my core begins to flash in my irritation. "Why is it so much harder to infuse my mana into metal than other substances?!"

Dawn turns her attention away from the intruders at my words and says, "There are a few reasons for it, but the two biggest ones are that there isn't anything organic in most metals, and that metal is a lot more rigid and difficult to adapt than other substances."

I focus on her for a moment before creating another arc made out of iron and turning my attention inside of it.

After that, I create an arc made out of dirt next to it and alternate my focus between the metal and the dirt arc in order to compare the two.

"I can see what you mean about the metal being more rigid, but what does the lack of organic matter have to do with infusing mana into it?" I mutter to Dawn as I focus on the overall structure of the two arcs, with a specific emphasis on the rigidness of the two.

It's pretty easy to tell when I focus on the two like this that the metal is a lot harder to adapt and change, with its structure seemingly wanting to stay the same in a similar way to how the intruders fight till their last breaths. But I can't see why...

"It's partially because organic matter tends to be a lot more adaptable than non-organic, but the main reason is that organic matter - no matter how little - has mana," Dawn explains, prompting me to focus my attention entirely on the arc of dirt.

Mana?

In dirt?

I focus on the dirt for several minutes, constantly looking at it at a much smaller scale until I eventually find a tiny, almost miniscule spark of mana inside of it.

"That..." I begin before turning my attention towards Dawn and finishing, "is not much mana..."

Dawn floats around in a circle before focusing her attention on the intruders again whilst saying, "Yep."

Hmm, what happens to the spark when I infused it with mana...

I focus my attention on the spark of mana as I infuse my own mana into the arc of dirt before watching the faint blue spark freeze in place for a second. It then begins to writhe back and forth until eventually it turns black and begins to grow larger, joining with my own mana currently infusing into the arc.

Huh. Well, that explains why it's a lot easier to infuse my mana into living beings and dirt and stone.

Wait, why is it easier to infuse into stone? Does it also have organic matter?

I turn my attention towards the stone wall of the lab for a second before focusing once again on the metal arc.

Never mind. If I want to see the intruders fighting Fang, then I'm gonna have to finish infusing my mana into this arc of iron.

I glance at the intruders as they continue making their way towards another one of the puzzles before focusing once more on the arc of iron.

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                                                                   A couple of hours later

A wave of anxiety fills my core as I get closer and closer to finishing with infusing my mana into the arc.

Please work this time...

Several seconds pass as my mana continues infusing itself into the arc before it finally reaches the end of it, causing the arc to suddenly flash a pulse of black light. After that, the arc itself begins to turn black in color.

"Finally!" I exclaim whilst looking at the entire arc for several seconds in admiration. "I finally did it."

"You infused your mana into the arc?" Dawn asks, drawing my attention towards her as she continues watching the intruders, who at this point are finally entering the second half of the tenth floor.

"Yep!" I answer her as my core flashes slightly in my satisfaction.

"That's good," Dawn says, making me feel a little confused with her dim reaction until she continues, "now you can do it again."

I stare at her for a few seconds before turning back to the arc again as I realize that all I did was infuse it with mana.

So I didn't give it any actual effects.

"Shit." I mutter, making Dawn giggle at my resigned tone.

I forgot that it was the remaining mana in the organic matter that was giving the monster infusions their direction.

So doing this is a lot more like a trap than anything. But even for infusing my traps with mana, that was still me using a preset bit of memory given to me by the system and changing it up from there to get different effects, and not me actually learning how to do it from scratch.

Which means...

"You're probably gonna have to do it several times before you are skilled enough with it to actually start experimenting with creating a portal," Dawn says, still not taking her attention away from the intruders as she speaks, "after all, it's not like creating a portal is an easy thing to do. Even for dungeon cores."

Yeah... this is going to suck.

I turn to watch the intruders as they continue making their way through the floor.

Coincidentally, right as I look at them, they run into one of the wolf dens surrounding a fortress. This immediately alerts the wolves patrolling outside of it, causing them to howl and alert every other wolf and lycan in the area to the intruders' presence.

Okay, I doubt that will end very well for them.

But considering what I've seen up till now, I also doubt it will be enough to kill them.

With that thought in mind, I focus on identifying each of the intruders again before turning my attention back towards my lab and creating another arc of metal.

It doesn't look like they're gaining much if any EXP on this floor anymore, and the ones that aren't Tier 2 already are just lacking the cultivation to do so.

But even with that, they should be fine.

Time to get back to work.

I really want some portals.

Especially now that I'm moving on to the eleventh floor.

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